Campus Journal; Taking U.F.O.'s for Credit, and for Real

By MICHAEL deCOURCY HINDS,

Published: October 28, 1992

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 27—
Every fall semester at Temple University, Prof. David M. Jacobs exposes himself to ridicule by teaching a course entitled "Unidentified Flying Objects in American Society." This year he made himself more vulnerable by asserting in a book that extra-terrestrials are among us and doing vile things.

"We have been invaded," he writes. "They want human sperm and eggs."

Such theories, he admits, make most people laugh or call him an embarrassment to the university. But many faculty members strongly support him, if only because of their commitment to academic freedom, and students sign up for his class in droves and give it superlative ratings in questionnaires.

Professor Jacobs, a historian, graduated from U.C.L.A. and earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin, where he wrote his doctoral thesis about the U.F.O. phenomenon. Having spent nearly a third of his 50 years on this planet separating U.F.O. fact from U.F.O. fiction, he is the first to admit his findings sound incredible. A corkboard in his cluttered Temple office, for example, features clippings from supermarket tabloids with headlines like "Alien Kidnappers Seek Human Blood and Body Parts, Warn Experts."

So what is the difference between aliens seeking blood and aliens seeking sperm and eggs? Research, says Professor Jacobs. And his book, "Secret Life: Firsthand Accounts of UFO Abductions" (Simon & Schuster, 1992), has a glowing introduction by Dr. John E. Mack, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Professor Jacobs had "made his case well," Dr. Mack writes.

Using hypnosis, Professor Jacobs interviewed about 60 people who say they were kidnapped and sexually exploited by aliens in several hundred encounters. Their stories are amazingly similar. They tell of "small beings" and "taller beings" from 2 feet to 5 feet tall with big heads, huge eyes and leathery gray skin. They do not talk but communicate telepathically, the people say.

The "beings," they say, kidnap men and women at night or at other times when the victims will not be missed, then put them into a trance, give them medical examinations, extract sperm or eggs, and sometimes implant or remove alien-human embryos.

Millions of Americans may have been abducted, Professor Jacobs theorizes, but most of them know only a residual feeling of anxiety and depression akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. "I want to be wrong," he said of his theory, adding he would "weep with joy" if there were no aliens around.

Professor Jacobs, who teaches a variety of history courses, has taught the one-semester U.F.O. course since 1977. The course, which attracts about 75 students, concludes with the study of his research on abductions.

"I am an easy target for ridicule," Professor Jacobs said. "But this is a serious course about a serious subject, and students take it seriously and get serious grades."

During a recent class, students paid rapt attention as Professor Jacobs described how a scholarly committee in the late 1960's was commissioned by the Air Force to investigate reported U.F.O. sightings. Instead, he said, committee members conspired to discount the validity of the sightings.

But Lou Teller, a senior, was skeptical. "I feel he is trying to sell us his view on U.F.O.'s because he discounts everyone else's work," he said.

Among themselves, some professors have questioned whether Temple's curriculum should include a three-credit course discussing supposed sexual abuse by aliens. But academic freedom has triumphed.

"I don't see David proselytizing, and as long as that is the case, I will continue to support him," said James W. Hilty, chairman of the history department. He recently nominated Professor Jacobs for promotion, to full professor of history from associate professor on the basis of "Secret Life" and numerous articles on U.F.O.'s. "It's an important body of work, and he has shown courage in pursuing it," Professor Hilty said.

Other faculty members think Professor Jacobs's book and course are nonsense. "Faculty members talk about it a lot and say it's really oddball stuff," said Prof. Philip R. Yannella, director of the department of American studies. "But I wouldn't want to be in the position of canceling the course just because it advocated a strange position."

Prof. Julia A. Ericksen, until recently the university's acting provost with responsibility for curriculum, said: "The most troubling complaints were two letters saying that the people Professor Jacobs had interviewed for his book had to be mentally ill, and that it was irresponsible for him to encourage their fantasies rather than getting them treatment."